In 1956, when I was 3 years of age, my parents moved their growing family from Germantown to a house on Wakeling Street, across the street from Frankford Stadium in the Northwood section of Frankford.
Because of that move, the Stadium always figured significantly in our lives. We used to love Frankford High School football game days in the Fall, because then we would get to hear the band parading down Wakeling Street back to the high school after victories. Then we would watch the track and field events at the Stadium in the Spring.
But, the Stadium was also a place where we got into trouble. In 1960, I was a meek kid at 7 years of age, and at that time the youngest in our crowd. One day, while grounds keepers worked at the far end of the Stadium, near the Dyre Street gates, the older kids decided that we should try to sneak around the inside the Stadium, to see if we could do so undetected. I was reluctant, but went along. There were several ways into the Stadium when it was locked. On that day we used the most dangerous — over the top of the front gates, with its pointed iron pikes.
We crept behind the walls at the front of the bleachers in the direction of the grounds keepers, and into the giant hedges behind the Dyre Street side gates. I felt very guilty about sneaking around behind adults backs like that. One of our little group whispered, “Here come the men! Duck down!” But I was frozen with fear. The grounds keepers saw us. The one in charge said, “CALL POLICE!” I burst out crying. When they heard that reaction they relented, opened the gates, and told us to never do that again. The other kids were glad that my crying had “tugged on their heartstrings” and moved the grounds keepers to let us go.
A few years later, as little boys sometimes do, I discovered fire, and I became “the kid who played with matches.” Mrs. Hughes, in the stone building on the northwest corner of Wakeling and Rutland, would see me hiding in the nook between the pine tree and bushes and the Stadium building on the corner, building little fires there, and warned me to stop or I might accidentally set the tree on fire. A few weeks later, one of my fires went out of control, and first the bushes, and then the tree, caught fire. I was horrified. I ran home and saw police and fire trucks arrive and put out the fire. I watched Mrs. Hughes talking to police, and I became sick with fear, and waited upstairs in our bedroom with a terrible bellyache for the knock at the door, which never came. Mrs. Hughes, bless her heart, lied to police, blaming the fire on “a white kid” she had “never seen before.” She said, “Peter, I lied for you. You have one more chance. Never do it again.” I promised, and, shocked at the consequences of my own bad behavior, I kept my promise.
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